Gurnee Police Charge Youth In Carjacking

July 29, 1993|By Fred Tannenbaum, Special to the Tribune.

A 16-year-old from Chicago has been charged in a May 20 carjacking in Gurnee after fingerprints lifted from the car matched the teen's prints on file with the Chicago police's computer file, authorities said Wednesday.

The fingerprints off the 1992 Nissan, which ultimately was found abandoned, were fed through a computerized fingerprint tracking system and led to the youth's arrest Sunday by Chicago police near the Cabrini-Green public housing complex, Gurnee Police Chief John Ward said.

The youth is charged with possession of a stolen motor vehicle and one count of robbery, Ward said. He has "an extensive criminal record," the chief added.

A 31-year-old woman was washing her car in a stall at the Spot-Not Car Wash, 6310 Grand Ave., Gurnee, when she was attacked by three youths. They choked her, threw her into the wall, punched her and sprayed her in the face with Mace, Ward said. They fled in her car as the woman stumbled over to another patron, who called police.

The suspects sped south on the Tri-State Tollway, were spotted and chased by police, and eventually abandoned the car about a half-mile north of the Deerfield Toll Plaza. They fled from the area after apparently stealing another car from a nearby parking lot.

The two accomplices are still being sought.

The suspect's fingerprints were tracked through the Automated Fingerprint Identification System, a computer network operated by the Northern Illinois Police Crime Laboratory in Highland Park as well as the Chicago police.